Comet ISON, which may put on a spectacular light show during a November date with the sun, was observed last month by the Deep Impact mission. / NASA

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Tuesday was Mansfield’s 16th straight day of precipitation, thanks to another half inch of snow that blew through after sunset, but with high pressure moving in Wednesday the clouds have a better chance at thinning out than we’ve seen for several days. I’m not terribly optimistic about seeing the sun’s golden rays, but here’s hoping.

Thanks to what is now a pretty decent snowpack, Wednesday’s temperatures will still have a hard time reaching the freezing mark. Our forecast high for the day is just 28 degrees, and if skies manage to stay clear overnight temperatures could really plummet.

The next storm system is slated to arrive late Thursday, with precipitation becoming likely overnight into Friday morning. In fact, Friday’s morning commute could get a bit interesting, as temperatures cool enough to allow the precip to fall as snow before 7 a.m., dropping perhaps an inch or two of snow.

The weekend is shaping up to be splendid, with fair weather, at least partly sunny skies and temperatures climbing to a forecast high temperature of 38 degrees Saturday, then 45 degrees Sunday.

There is a significant weather system with its eyes on the Ohio Valley, but it’s not expected to arrive here until Monday, when it should easily be warm enough for any precipitation associated with it to fall as rain here.

Astronomy enthusiasts are already excited about the prospects for Comet ISON, an icy orb that’s expected to put on quite a show late this year.

NASA’s Deep Impact probe shot the first photos of the comet last month from a distance of 493 million miles. The bright, dusty ball doesn’t look like much right now, at least from our neighborhood, but by November it could be the brightest comet we’ve seen here in decades.

Below are the weather statistics for Tuesday, Feb. 5, at my location 4 miles north-northwest of Fredericktown, Ohio: